The 43 best design blogs for inspiration

Creative design blogs come in handy while working in the field of graphic design. After all, it’s too easy to loose steam in the midst of cranking out design after design. Fear not! For your inspiration needs we’ve combed through every inch of the internet to bring you 43 of the best design blogs in existence. On top of that, we’ve organized them into six categories:

Interdisciplinary designs blogs
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1. TDB – The Design Blog

The Design Blog features carefully selected good works from studios and designers from around the globe. The selections definitely earn this site its tagline: “Don’t just be a designer – be a good one.”

Articles are categorized and searchable through 26 different tags corresponding to separate areas of graphic design. The site features themed content daily, including “Shop Hunting Tuesdays,” “Web Design Wednesdays,” “Friday Freebies,” “Sunday Dribbles” and… well, you get the idea.

The Design Blog was created in 2011 by 24-year-old Ena Bacanovi of Zagreb, Croatia. You can find their design work here.

2. Good Design Makes Me Happy

Good Design Makes Me Happy features minimal write-up and carefully-curated design examples that speak for themselves. This is a site for designers who are simply in need of eye candy—and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Good Design Makes Me Happy was founded in 2009 by designer Hannah Dollery. You can see her work by clicking here.

3. AIGA: Eye on Design

The AIGA, also known as The Professional Association for Design, was founded in 1914. It’s the oldest and largest membership organization for design in the US. Their blog has a whopping 122 reputable contributors who’s bios you can explore here (well worth the time).

4. Trend List

It’s websites like Trend List that are keeping the internet awesome in 2016. According to the site, “Trend List is not a criticism of contemporary graphic design. It just points to the fact that graphic design (like everything else) is affected by certain trends, and today is no exception.”

Trend List essentially surfaces “reoccurring graphic languages and motifs,” which is a noble task in a vast design landscape that largely void of true originality. The site also features 34 trend categories including Left-Right-Up-Down, and Staircase.

It’s wild to see dozens of design examples categorized by their inherent design trend. Each page even has a small infographic for each trend displaying popularity by year. Quite revealing! This website will surely inspire you to make something different.

Runner ups:

Logo design blogs
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10. Branding, Packaging & Opinion

If there ever was a household name in logo opinion, it would be Richard Baird, the founder and editor of Brand, Packaging & Opinion. You can check out his personal design work here. Baird offers extremely in depth reviews of both logos and packaging, which he clearly delineates between on his site.

His writing style is highly opinionated and expressive—perfect for firing you up to design a quality logo that you’re proud of. This website is also refreshing in that Baird writes about lesser known logos such as the True Honey Co. and Happy Maple.

11. Logo Design Love

Logo Design Lovelaunched in 2008 and is updated roughly twice a week. This is the “sister” site of Identity Designed (also worth checking out). Logo Design Love was originally a book on logos and has evolved into a well-known website that takes a multitude of perspectives on logo design.

12. Brand New

According to founder Armin Vit, Brand Newis a logo “bitch-fest”. Put more tactfully, the site features “opinions on corporate and brand identity work.” It surfaced in 2006 as a branch of well-known design firm and blog network Underconsideration LLC(another great resource). The site is divided into three main sections—Reviews, Objective Notes and Minor Descriptions. This blog is largely inspiring in its honesty—something both rare and useful in today’s design industry.

13. David Airey

David Airey is a well known graphic designer who’s work you can explore here. The David Airey blog features lesser known and wonderfully unique design examples that are analyzed in detail with a critical eye. His site also has a section called Advise for students that gives basic advice for design students who are seeking to build a successful, creative career.

This is a good site to get your creative wheels turning. It’s simple, clean and thoughtful.

14. The Blog of Mr. Cup – Graphic Exchange

The Blog of Mr. Cup – Graphic Exchange is run by one-time agency art director, now calendar and coaster designer, Fabien Barral. You can see his product designs here. His blog is updated about once a week with incredibly photo dense articles that live up to his tag line: “emotion, inspiration, creation”.

Runner up

Illustration blogs
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16. Wrap magazine

Wrap magazineis primarily a print magazine that is published twice a year and celebrates contemporary illustration. Their blog, on the other hand, features a specific style of illustration, and showcases highlights from the magazine, plus additional works by inspirational artists. This Tumblr provides a never-ending stream of eye candy, which is often just what you need when seeking inspiration!

17. Today’s Illustration

Today’s Illustration is a blog by art enthusiast Leif Peng. It features a seriously refined curation of vintage illustrations as well as in depth interviews and conversations with the artists. If vintage illustration is your thing, this is the spot for inspiration. Today’s Illustration is updated several times a month.

18. Ape on the Moon

Ape on the Moonwas founded by illustrator Alex Mathers and Phillip Dennis, who’s work you can find here. The site focuses on new illustration and the people who make it. All of their articles are filled with information on the artists and often interviews. The examples are carefully curated and are sure to inspire a creative mind in need.

19. Illustration Age

The Illustration Age staff is eight illustrator/artists deep. You can check them out by clicking here. The site is packed with hand-picked resources, such as online classes, digital tools, art director contacts, competitions, books and podcasts.

This blog is also unique in that it produces self-created content such as creative pep talks and artistic challenges. In other words they aren’t just regurgitating the internet! Expect high resolution eye candy and highly skilled designer features.

20. CIA – Central Illustration Agency

CIA – Central Illustration Agencyfeatures photo-dense articles with all the necessary info on featured artists and illustrators. Their refined taste in illustration spans a wide spectrum of styles within illustration. The CIA blog is divided into two main sections—one for animators and one for illustrators. The illustration section can be found by clicking here. Additionally, for those internet-addicts out there, this blog is updated almost every day!

Poster and book design blogs
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25. WOGD – Women of Graphic Design

It’s always important to feature women in graphic design (and to raise awareness to their struggle in the male dominated field). Women of Graphic Design does just that in a celebratory style. The blog isn’t specifically limited to posters and book designs, but it features a large amount of content in that medium.

WOGD is curated by Tori Hinn, who’s work you can find here, Kathleen Sleboda, who’s work you can find here, and six additional curators. The blog features mostly current work by female designers around the world and has the power to inspire designers of all genders.

26. Gurafiku

For those that don’t know, Japanese design is mind-bending. It will melt your brain, and cast it into a kitten-shaped mold of glittery inspiration, leaving you with the thought: “why couldn’t I think of this.” According to the blog, Gurafiku is “a collection of visual research surveying the history of graphic design in Japan.”

The blog is curated by designer Ryan Hageman, whose work you can check out here.

27. nv s b l ty

nv s b l tyis the mysterious and cleverly-named blog of Ross Berens, who you can find here. It is updated about once a month and features incredible designs that are well worth the wait. There’s no filler here folks, and not much info on the blog either; just clean, minimal, drool-inducing design images.

28. The Book Design Blog

According to the site,The Book Design Blog “aims to find and showcase inspirational publications from around the world.” The blog was founded and is currently curated by designer Paul Murray, who’s work you can find here. The site features an inspiration section that is organized into 5 parts: books, book covers, magazines, zines and everything else.

This blog has good balance of image content and opinion. This is really the go-to blog for book design inspiration!

29. Grain Edit

Quoting from the site, Grain Edit “is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.” The site content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books from the curators bookshelves.

Expect simple, informative write-ups and image dense articles. Most articles also feature a useful “also worth viewing” section, which is a great wormhole of inspiration.

Packaging design blogs
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31. The Dieline

The Dielinewas founded by Andrew Gibbs, who in his early years designed branding for Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Jelly Belly. In the evolution of The Dieline, six other contributors have joined.

According to the website, “The Dieline’s purpose is to define and promote the world’s best package design, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest trends and projects being created in the field.”

The blog has five features: Articles, concepts, before & after, collections and top 10. The site is additionally tagged by industry (beauty, home, office, etc.) and substrates (aluminum, fabric, glass, etc.), which is extremely helpful if you are seeking inspiration for a very specific industry or material.

32. Ambalaj

Ambalajwas founded in 2008 by designer Kristina de Verdier and currently features three other contributors. This blog focuses slightly more on innovation. The site is updated once to twice a month and the wait is well worth it. The featured articles are unique and feature topics well worth talking about, such as 3D-printed Algae Packaging and The Circular Economy of Packaging. This blog is highly inspirational for eco-minded designers!

33. createid

There is no real specific mission behind createid aside from appreciating for beautiful packaging. Nothing wrong with that! The articles often feature thoughts and notes from the designers as well as objective write-ups. Expect updates 3 to 4 times a month.

34. POTW – Packaging of the World

From the POTW website – “Packaging of the World is one of the most prominent package design website showcasing the most interesting and creative work worldwide.” It is curated by four renowned art directors, designers and writers: Derrick Lin, Jaden Law, Carroll Ho and Joe Hickman.

Most articles feature write-ups, quotes from the designers and other necessary info to understanding each design product. The featured projects, such as a wonderfully minimal first aid kit student redesign are unique and worthwhile

35. Package Design Matters

Package Design Mattersoperates as a magazine, yet also maintains a content-rich blog that is dedicated to, in their words, “elevating the collaborative design process.” The blog contains five main sections: news, perspective, design reviews, product spotlights and a video section called “Innovation TV.”

Typography blogs
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37. NYC Type

NYC Type is a special place on the internet. It showcases entirely original content from semi-anonymous blogger “Luke”, and features photographs of real world typography in New York City. That’s right, someone walked hundreds of miles through NYC and photographed all the typographic gems just for you. This is a true sweet spot for inspiration!

38. typetoken

typetoken is like rich chocolate. Every single article is polished, every single aspect of the blog is given high attention to detail, and the site is perfectly organized into sections: icon, publication, theory, typeface, visual language, event, identity and art.

According to the blog, typetoken “asks you to join its journey into the symbolic world of typography”. typetoken is a collaboration between designers Mike Sullivan of Mister, Marc Millic of Modularlab and web designer David Cole of Mayfield Digital.

39. Type Worship

Founded by incredible typographer Jaimie Clarke, whose work you can find here, Type Worship features highly inspirational examples of typography from around the globe. Each example is accompanied by detailed information on the pieces, including dimensions, credits, locations and links. Expect excellent examples that are fun to look at.

40. typeroom

You know when a typography blog has a music-festival-inspired article called The Summer Guide to Typography 2016: Where to go, that they are dead-serious about type. While little detail is given about typeroom up front, it is a copywrite of Parachute Fonts, an award-winning type foundry (and is likely operated by similar staff).

41. Typostrate

Typostrate started as a personal blog but has grown into a crew of talented curators. The blog is updated roughly once a month with an intentional quality-over-quantity outlook. Expect great article topics such as Graffitti VS Typography. The site has many sections including one with inspirational quotes, and also contains more images than you will ever have time to look at!